Editing Sorley MacLean (section)

===1930s===
He was educated at Raasay Primary School and [[Portree High School|Portree Secondary School]].<ref name=childhood/><ref name=larach/> In 1929, he left home to attend the [[University of Edinburgh]].<ref name="larach"/> For economic reasons, he chose to study [[English literature]] instead of [[Celtic studies]], a decision he later regretted "because I was interested only in poetry and only in some poetry at that."<ref name=university/>{{r|open|p=16|rse}} He intensely disliked the head of the English department, [[H. J. C. Grierson|Herbert Grierson]], who favoured different poets than MacLean; MacLean also felt that Grierson imposed his aesthetic preferences on the department. MacLean's academic work has been described as merely "dutiful".{{r|contexts|p=2}} While at Edinburgh, MacLean also took classes in the Celtic Department, then under [[William J. Watson]].{{r|rse}} He was involved in literary circles, played for the [[University Shinty|university shinty team]], and, like many other British intellectuals of the same era, was Pro-Soviet and, while never an official member, he was involved as a "[[fellow traveller]]" with the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]].<ref name=alumnus/><ref name=university/> MacLean later described an occasion in which he joined a demonstration against Sir [[Oswald Mosley]], the leader of the [[British Union of Fascists]].{{r|hobit}} According to [[Celtic studies|Celtic scholar]] Emma Dymock, MacLean's education at Edinburgh broadened his horizons and the city itself was significant in his life.<ref name=alumnus/> While in Edinburgh, he also observed urban poverty, [[slums]], and overcrowding, which was especially severe due to the continuing [[Great Depression in the United Kingdom|Great Depression]].{{r|displacement|p=9}} After his graduation in 1933 with a [[first-class degree]],{{r|open|p=16|rse}} he remained in Edinburgh and studied at Moray House Teachers' Training College, where he met [[Hugh MacDiarmid]].<ref name="university" />

[[File:Ardmore - geograph.org.uk - 108466.jpg|thumb|left|Ruins of a stone house on [[Isle of Mull|Mull]]]]

In 1934, he returned to Skye to teach English at Portree High School.<ref name="larach"/><ref name=alumnus/> After the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out in 1936, he considered volunteering to fight in the [[International Brigades]]; according to his daughter, he would have gone if not for the poverty of his family and his own responsibilities as their provider.<ref name="larach"/> At the time, his mother was seriously ill and his father's business was failing.<ref name="world" /> In January 1938, MacLean accepted a teaching position at [[Tobermory High School]] on the [[Isle of Mull]], where he stayed until December.<ref name="world" />{{r|day|p=145}} The year he spent on Mull had a profound effect on him, because Mull was still devastated from nineteenth-century [[Highland Clearances]], during which MacLean's own ancestors had been evicted.{{r|Czech|pp=125–6}}{{r|day|p=145}} MacLean later said, "I believe Mull had much to do with my poetry: its physical beauty, so different from Skye's, with the terrible imprint of the clearances on it, made it almost intolerable for a Gael." He believed that [[fascism]] was likely to emerge victorious in Europe, and was further dismayed by the [[language shift|continuing decline]] of the Gaelic language.<ref name="world" />{{r|interview|p=29}}{{r|landscape|p=242}}

Between 1939 and 1941, he taught at [[Boroughmuir High School]] in Edinburgh, and in [[Hawick]].<ref name="larach"/><ref name=alumnus/> During this period, he wrote most of the poetry that would become ''Dàin do Eimhir'', including the epic ''An Cuilthionn''. MacLean cultivated friendships with [[Scottish Renaissance]] poets, including MacDiarmid, [[Robert Garioch]], [[Norman MacCaig]], [[Douglas Young (classicist)|Douglas Young]], and [[George Campbell Hay]].{{r|contexts|p=4|rse}} MacLean, also a noted historian, published two influential papers on nineteenth-century Gaelic poetry in ''Transactions of the {{ill|Gaelic Society of Inverness|gd|Comunn Gàidhlig Inbhir Nis}}'' in 1938 and 1939, which challenged the [[Celtic Twilight]] view of [[Scottish Gaelic literature]]. MacLean accused the "Celtic Twilightists" of "attributing to Gaelic poetry the very opposite of every quality which it actually has", and stated that their claims only succeeded because the Twilightists catered solely to an English-speaking audience. He pointed out that the apparent sentimentality and sense of impotence within surviving poetry about the [[Highland Clearances]] may well have been due to the fact that [[Anglo-Scottish]] landlords would not have tolerated poetry that was openly critical of them.{{r|historian|p=124-6}} His use of Gaelic poetry as a potential source material for historical studies was also radically innovative at the time.{{r|historian|pp=122–3}}